Madhepura (Bihar): Munni Devi, a frail widow, lives in a temporary shelter along with her mentally challenged son ever since her home was washed away in the Kosi floods over five years ago. Like many others, she too is distressed over the disaster not being an election issue in Bihar’s Madhepura parliamentary constituency.
In her late 50s, she built the temporary shelter on a narrow lane in Kalyanpatti village and hopes that her house will be built under the Bihar government’s rehabilitation and reconstruction project.
The Kusaha embankment near the India-Nepal border on the Kosi river was breached Aug 18, 2008, that caused the worst floods in 50 years.
According to the state government and the World Bank, 236,632 houses collapsed in the Kosi floods.
Munni Devi is still waiting for the construction of her house like hundreds of others and is now fed up with promises and assurances given by different politicians during one election after the other.
“I am staying in a temporary shelter built by me with plastic, bamboo and thatched after my house was totally damaged. The government is yet to construct my house,” said Munni, whose only source of income is her other son who works as a labourer in Punjab or Haryana.
There is no road connectivity to Kalyanpatti after a small bridge and road were washed away by river.
Madhepura votes April 30.
Mahender Yadav, an activist working among Kosi flood victims, said: “No rehabilitation and reconstruction took place in Kalyanpatti, an example of how hundreds of villagers were left in the lurch…there are hundreds of villages like this.”
Mahender is dismayed over the lack of a rehabilitation and reconstruction project for thousands of Kosi flood victims in Madhepura not being an election issue.
It is an irony that candidates and their political parties not taking up a “serious issue like rehabilitation and reconstruction project for flood victims”, he said.
Ranjeev of Kosi Anchal Vikas Nidhi, an organization working among flood victims, said that announcement to rebuild a new Kosi region remains only on paper and the truth is the state government has disappointed people.
He said that JD-U along with “RJD of Lalu Prasad and BJP…are heavily banking on caste equations, instead of raising a genuine issue like it,” he said.
Mahender said that the Bihariganj assembly seat is represented Renu Kumari Kushwaha, who resigned from the Nitish Kumar cabinet last month and was suspended by the Janata Dal (United) for openly campaigning for her husband and BJP candidate Vijay Singh against party president Sharad Yadav, sitting MP from Madhepura.
“She was minister of disaster management in the Nitish Kumar cabinet but failed to help flood victims, who are angry with her,” he said.
RJD candidate and former controversial MP Pappu Yadav is heavily banking on his caste men’s support instead raising the rehabilitation and reconstruction issue in the Yadav dominated seat.
Ramji Das, resident of Pratapnagar village, and Karee Devi, resident of Jamwan Tapra village, both flood victims, said that bank accounts of about 1,200 flood victims were opened in 2012 but the money for the construction of their houses has not been released till date.
They said the flood victims have been losing hope for rehabilitation due to delay.